Messed!Up
You would think that Friday and Saturday would be the festival days at the festival as most of the bigger names usually play during weekends to attract day-ticket visitors, but to be honest, I didn’t have much on my schedule at all. Some of the bigger acts I’ve already watched earlier this summer – Blur, Christine and the Queens, Caroline Polachek, and a few more – and save for Blur those other acts hadn’t impressed me and I just skipped them out.
Friday was primarily about three acts – Alice Glass, Japanese Breakfast, and Blur – but also lots of catching up with friends I haven’t seen in a while, and when the line-up wasn’t up my alley I thought it would be a good idea to spend the day with people I used to hang out with 20-25 years ago at the festival. It’s amazing to have visited the festival every year since 1992 and to still have friends tagging along almost since year one.
Alice Glass left Crystal Castles after going public with detailed allegations of abuse against her ex-bandmate, Ethan Kath. Her 2022 album Prey//IV was a promising solo comeback, a lot darker than the Castles, and a testimony of her experiences about abuse, power, and regaining control. With several electrifying Crystal Castles gigs in mind, I headed off to the Apollo stage and was expecting something rowdy – and left after three painful songs. Maybe it’s part of her strategy to break completely with her intense performances as the frontman of Crystal Castles, but make sure to have a substitute before you do it because this wasn’t good in any way. Even the songs off Prey//IV sounded flat and that doesn’t fit electronic music at all. What happened with the fat basslines on the album? Or the heavy, at times industrial, beats? This wasn’t even close to good and quite a dull performance and I left.
Luckily, it meant that I would be in front of the Orange stage 30 minutes ahead of the Blur gig. At Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona a few weeks ago, I left after half of the show because I had a tight schedule but tonight I didn’t have anything that would bother me at all. Already at Primavera Sound, it was obvious that the band in general and Damon Albarn in particular were on fire. In fact, it was a long time ago I’ve seen Blur doing such a great performance as in Barcelona. And then they played the Orange stage.
Right from the start it was obvious that Albarn was in a great mood and he repeatedly pointed out how much he loved to be back at the Roskilde Festival. After many performances at the festival with Blur, Gorillaz, and the massive four-hour set with Africa Express in 2015 ending with security carrying (!) Albarn off stage when the show ran over the 4 am curfew by five minutes, I guess Roskilde and Albarn have a special relationship. Rumor says that Albarn even slept at the campsite one year because of all the fun going on there.
During the 20-song set, they delivered just what I and the audience wanted, a stellar performance and hits like “Popscene”, “Girls & Boys”, “Parklife”, Coffee & TV”, “Song 2”, and one of my absolute favorites “The Narcissist” – all coated in Albarn’s intense movements on stage. It may have been the last time Denmark got to see Blur but it was a worthy ending and something to remember for life.
Unfortunately, it was also the end of the evening for me as I was struggling with foot problems due to painful tendonitis – yes, it’s about age and too much training when I was younger – and I spent an hour at the medical tent to get some treatment and a few painkillers. The rest of the night was spent in the international press area and sharing a few coffees with fellow colleagues.
Saturday arrived and I realized I had the most hectic day of the festival in front of me, not so much because of the bands – I only had three ‘must-see’ bands on the schedule – but because I had to catch up with people I had not met yet. Remember, a festival is more than music and Roskilde Festival is a lot more than music for me. Lucky for me was that I didn’t have any shows on the schedule until 11 pm and there was plenty of time to catch up and deliver ‘goodbyes’.
First up was Lizzo which is quite surprising for a rock/indie rock dude like me but I just love her attitude and her preaches about body positivity, being a role model for women to accept and love their bodies in the same way that she does. In this day and age when young people are bombarded with fucked up ideals on social media, someone needs to speak up and Lizzo does.
With spine-tingling vocals and high-energy twerk routines, Lizzo shows off in ways most artists would dream about. “How are you, bitches”, she bursts out after the introduction and then sets off in a euphoric display of true superstardom. I know, it’s not what I listen to at all. In fact, I haven’t listened to any Lizzo songs ahead of tonight but it doesn’t matter, I was here for the show – and what a show we all got! It’s relentlessly aerobic, theatrical, emotional, hilarious, fun, and all coated in Lizzo’s amazing vocal range. I don’t remember seeing her stop smiling at any time during the show. She treats every song like it’s a grand finale, and it feels overwhelmingly triumphant already after the third song. In front of me, I had five young girls that apparently knew all the lyrics, on the left was a group of older people in their late fifties, and behind me were people in their thirties – and they all thrusted themselves out in frenetic dancing. I don’t remember when I had this much fun at a show with an artist I never ever listened to before. If you ever have the chance to watch Lizzo live, take it!
After some water – yes, water and not beer, it’s the last day – I was off to the Apollo stage just in time for Perturbator to start. If you don’t know about Perturbator he’s one of the bigger synthwave acts next to fellow French countryman Carpenter Brut (who did an epic Roskilde Festival gig in 2019) and walks down the same road music-wise. Perturbator, aka James Kent, hasn’t a full band setup on stage, it’s only himself and a drummer, but he compensates with a massive light rig constructed as a pentagram. Although I didn’t have time to stay for more than a few songs – I’ve been to a few Pertubator gigs before – ’cause I wanted to catch Wargasm on the other side of the festival area just half an hour later, I got bored quite quickly. Sure, synthwave gigs are instrumental music experiences, free of any kind of vocals save for a few samples, and I’m used to it as I’m a devoted synthwave fan, but it gets too boring to only watch a show where the experience is dependent on the lights. I left right after the fourth song, my favorite “Future Club”, and embarked on the 15-minute walk to the Avalon stage to watch Wargasm instead.
Wargasm are a London duo, consisting of Sam Matlock and Milkie Way, that mixes electronic music and heavy nu-metal guitars, and they’re one of the most talked about rock bands in the UK at the moment. Their provocative sound has gotten them award nominations, sets at major music festivals around the world, and collaborations with the likes of Enter Shikari and Limp Bizkit.
The duo starts jumping and running around the stage just as the music starts playing, and the big highlight of the show was Wargasm’s remarkable stage presence. It was strong, formidable, incredibly passionate, and the band delivered what can only be described as an explosion of raw energy. Both Way and Matlock’s vocals were very strong, with Matlock’s sensational screaming vocal technique working well with Way’s vocal range and passionate performance. To add onto this, the band chemistry against both Way and Matlock and Wargasm’s session musicians was sublime. Everyone who was on stage had such passion, the instrumentation throughout the set worked wonderfully and they played very well together.
“D.R.I.L.D.O” comes with the ever-catchy chant of ‘Drink, fuck, fight, love’, and whether you’re a fan or not, you know what the duo stands for and you know that they don’t care what you think. Whilst the atmosphere is intense, this scene is not an execution of mindless violence; it is a shared experience of euphoria. Milkie Way and Matlock are throwing themselves into the air, across the stage, seemingly propelled by the force of their own sound. It doesn’t matter what song they played, it was rowdy! With “Spit”, the techno-inspired beat and rapid drums threaten to shake the site to its foundations, they create a sound that is at times surprisingly dancelike; almost ecstatic in its rage. Milkie’s bitter cry of the song’s hallmark lyric, “It’s so disgusting”, sends the crowd into mania. The verdict? Next to Nova Twins, it’s the best gig of the festival. Or let’s make it a tie, that’s fair.
That’s it, that was the last show for me at the Roskilde Festival and after a detour to the press center to pick up my gear I set off for a final night with friends I won’t see until next year.
Slider photo: Stiig Hougesen
